Robotycs

Robotycs is ylab’s robotics group. Participants range from beginners to experts doing this for a living, and everyone is welcome to learn and participate.

Our current activities include:

A formal monthly meeting with a presentation topic, show and tell time and discussion. Usually the 4th Wednesday of the month.

Hands-on ylab maker nights, hosted by the David Dunlap Observatory. Usually Wednesday evenings, and we’re looking to add more.

Looking for a big project or competition to challenge ourselves.

As space is limited, registration is required. Go to our Events Page for dates and details We charge a small fee both to ensure spots are not wasted by people registering and not showing up, and because it does cost money to run these things. Organisers are all unpaid volunteers.

Actions speak louder than words, so check out the blog entries below to see what we’re doing, then come out and join the fun.

Meetings will be held on the 4th Wednesday of every month from 7PM to 10 PM.

Register on Eventbrite to attend using the links on the right or go to our upcoming events page.

Robotycs back with a vengeance on Wed. Jan 27

BATTLEBOTS! Ylab’s monthly Robotycs evening is back with a vengeance on Wednesday January 27. This month’s Robot Talk features battlebot veteran Ramy Gattas. Ramy hosted our first Robotycs events at Logics Academy last year. It’s a privilege to have join us at the DDO for the evening.

Ramy will be sharing his adventures in building and participating on the University of Toronto Team entry in the Robogames competitions in great places like San Mateo, California.

Not a robot. Breaks other people’s robots.

You can check out some of the mayhem his team wreaked on their opponents here and here.

As always, bring your own robotic creation for Show and Tell time, continue work on your toy hack, get some help and help some others. Ross has been advancing his own creations with a Raspberry Pi board and Python code, and is eager to share what he’s learned.

Big Mix Night: Robotycs, Arduino, Car Hacks and the DDO!

Wed Nov 4, 2015. It was like a whole bunch of ylab events, shaken up, mixed together and served up with everyone wondering how on earth the unholy mess would taste.

Our friends at the David Dunlap Observatory somehow agreed to let us in to the darkest recesses of their basement for what was supposed to be a barely-announced Robotycs hands-on night. As if that wasn’t scary enough, the place was still littered with skeletons, corpses and other horrors from the DDO Haunted House .

As a test event, we limited the announcement to the fortunate people who attended our two first Robotycs meetings and our Arduino class.

Instead of using robotic kits, we asked everyone to bring whatever old wired or R/C cars they had lying around their basements to modify for Arduino control.

There’s an oscilloscope. This must be science.

Ylab volunteers brought in oscilloscope, voltmeter, tools, soldering irons and other implements of toy destruction. Robot Ross gave the introductory lesson on how to work to work the motors with Arduino. Then the mayhem started.

Big thanks to the regular ylab volunteers (Richard, Ross, Jay, Pek), to Canada Robotix for the discount on the Arduino boards, to the DDO for hosting, and, above all, to all the attendees who came out and made the event a success.

BREAKING NEWS:MORE OF THE SAME NEXT WEEK! Look for the booking announcement in the next couple of days on this page (Over there! On the right side!) or by searching on Eventbrite. Same time – 7 PM Wednesday – and same place, which we’ve officially nicknamed the ylab DDOngeon.

October Wrap-Up: Python! Robots! Nerds! Makers! Haunted House! TAVES!

October was a crazy month. YLab is all about tech community, so it’s more than just the events we put on. YLab regulars, volunteers and friends have been all over the place, including:

YLab’s Python Constricted class, hosted by the Markham Public Library, where a dozen people were introducted to the Python programming language, and helped along by ylab volunteers.

Our second monthly Robotycs meeting, hosted once again by Logics Academy, covered an intro to Arduino and Raspberry Pi. We’re looking for a serious competition project!

We have a small offshoot of beginners from Robotycs who are eager to learn and will start some hands-on weekly training by hacking remote control cars. Experienced volunteers will be showing up to help them with soldering irons, oscilloscopes and Arduino gear.

Speaking of the DDO… We wrapped up the month with a Halloween eve visit to their Haunted House in full geek-out costume, complete with pocket protectors, taped eyeglasses and white socks. That was after a visit to TAVES Consumer Electronics Show held at the Sheraton at Hwy 7 and Leslie. Big thanks to the TAVES organisers for the free weekend passes. The must see item: the Richmond Hill AMD team’s virtual reality demo.

YLab Visiting TAVES and Getting an AMD VR Demo

The DDO’s Haunted House was augmented this year by contributions from YLab friends and robotics experts Eric and Brett Hagman. The sound-activated, full-size crawling skeletons were a nice touch.

First Robotycs Meeting: New Faces, Enthusiasm and a Fast Robot Build

Accompanied by their builders and a bunch of budding and accomplished roboticists, a menagerie of robots crowded into Logics Academy for ylab’s inaugural Robotycs meeting. The all-too-human Robot Ross gave an intro to the group’ and some potential direction. A big part of it will be participants bringing in their creations (or is that the other way around?). Goals are to meet other robotics fans, share expertise and help set direction for the meetings. Ross provided some perspective on and why “robotics technology today” and what we thought comprised a “Robot”, and finally some examples of movie robot mayhem.

Show-and-Tell was a highlight of the evening. One creative builder demonstrated the motivator part of his underwater robot. Unfortunately, Ramy’s shop doesn’t feature a swimming pool, so the key feature was not demonstrated (note to Ramy: can you add one for a future meeting?). Jack showed his smart phone controlled 4-wheeled floor bot, and Rami showed an example of a Logics Academy educational device -a tone activated drawing pencil suitable for younger roboticists.

After a vigorous open discussion, we agreed that for the next meeting, everyone should bring back suggestions on specific topics activities they’d like to see in subsequent meetings. A popular point was for the group to show the specific steps to build a working robot from scratch, i.e. where to start, how to set behavior and functional objectives, what choices of hardware, and what software to select. A group build project might serve us well.

Jack and Paul concluded the meeting with a demonstration of How to build a Robot in 10 Minutes, using a precut laser cut base, 2 motors and an Arduino controller equipped with a Carobotx motor shield. Slowed down by lots of descriptions and explanations, it took them 22 minutes until the “It’s alive!” moment when it was able to explore the floor on its own.

Big thanks to Rami and Logics Academy for once again hosting a ylab event, Jack and Paul for all their help, and Robot Ross for initiating the whole thing. And, of course, to all the new people who came out for their first ylab event.

Robotycs meetings are being scheduled for the 4th Wednesday of every month. The next one is on Wednesday, October 28, once again at Logics Academy. Stay tuned for registration information.